


life goes on, as it never ends

by bountifulsilences



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Kinda, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, SO MANY SPOILERS IN THIS, Spoilers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, i don't know what to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 17:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18609358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bountifulsilences/pseuds/bountifulsilences
Summary: Everything hurt; the physical injuries, the mental ones, and the ones he couldn’t comprehend but felt nonetheless. Dying was the easy part, to live was the true struggle. And he was sick of surviving whilst everyone around him dropped like flies.or the one, where the fight was won and Steve can't come to terms with all he's lost.





	life goes on, as it never ends

**Author's Note:**

> so i've seen it. i'm mad. i'm hurt. and we all, including Steve, deserved so much better. 
> 
> this is a kind of fix it, it's just me trying to deal w endgame. the writing is awful but god damn words are hard to find right now. if anyone wants to cry with me, my socials will be down in the end notes !!
> 
> all mistakes are my own. yall already know what it is. i hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

When life must end, it will.

The sirens will blare, agonising shrieking to signal the initiation, and the soul will ascend. Will levitate to the sky, to the world, to the heavens. Nothing remains but a carcass, a vessel that was there to transport them as they navigated the earth; now broken, it was nothing. A shell that needed disposing. Steve knew this.

Bodies were a loyal home, withstanding the earthquakes and the tsunamis, enduring the blistering winds of pain that emerged from the anguished soul itself. Devoted to the host as much as it could be. Sewing the skin back together, colouring itself to demand the aid it needs, conquering whatever is thrown at it, regardless. To part was bittersweet, not matter how the end was beckoned. Leaving behind a companion was as painful as it was exhilarating.

After all, he had once felt the depressing liberation, the euphoria of completing a journey but the fear of what lay ahead once the earth was abandoned. Nothing was created with certainty; they were all as fragile fabrications. Their mortality but a passing dream.

Watching Tony’s iris stare at the forlorn clouds, blood weaving through the eye and accentuating the despair in his demise, Steve thought they may have been as temporary as a blink of the eye. That much he wouldn’t deny; time was its own mistress. But those who witnessed the beauty of life and the soul, which was encompassed in the vessel, were burdened with the knowledge that a person they once had was no more. A mark- an imprint remained.

And thinking back to the smile he had received seconds before Thanos arrived, how Tony’s wistful and loving voice sang symphonies of adoration for his new life and all that he had achieved amidst the horrific loss, he felt sick. Nauseous and insatiable, his throat chalky and breaking down as though it wasn’t structurally sound, it felt as debilitated as those who disintegrated before his eyes.

Reduced to nothing. A void in which nothing could ever exist. Not a single breath, nor a word. Silence in its cruellest form.

Murmurs and sobs and dismay surrounded him, petals stitched to a stigma of a flower, inescapable unless they were plucked. Nobody could help him; the misery would always be his alone to carry. Seven years and counting, he knew how to walk with his chest elevated and eyes soaring, sustaining the agony to the only place he could control it: in his lungs. They had not completely thawed, the ice prevailing and melting at glacial speed. The crash and the guilt rampant. But what more could he do?

So, he looked away, Tony’s eyes too empty and the bud on his chest too lifeless. He couldn’t stay, not when their victory felt too alike a tremendous loss, and not when he knew that Natasha had got them to this point and yet she couldn’t live it for herself. Life was so cruel, a malicious maker and tormenter. To steal away those who had everything to lose was a trick that he couldn’t comprehend- didn’t want to.

They had won the battle but lost the war. Their triumph did not bring rejoice, it brought tears and he couldn’t shed them. Not where everyone could see. He needed to leave, he needed to breathe.

Checking past Thor, and over to Sam who had flown over, he muttered under his breath, “give me a minute. Start rounding people up, get medics on the ground, and I’ll be right back.”

Sam stared at him, concern clear. “You going to be okay?”

“We won,” he answered, smile strained and stinging. That was all he could say. “See you in a minute.”

Sam nodded, worry deepening in a way that Steve was too familiar with, and Steve walked away, sniffling and face ahead. Nobody tried to confront him, kept their words of comfort at bay (something he was immensely grateful for) and nodded as he passed them. Acknowledgement of what they had to lose in order to gain. Oh, but they didn't know. The sacrifices that were made for all of them to survive. _They didn’t know_.

Natasha, he thought, it should never have been you. It should have been no one. And yet it was. Those who wished to see the world prosper with themselves in it, they walked to their demise by doing this. Those indifferent to their death, they survived. He wanted to scream.

But how could he, when he no longer had a voice? Didn’t have a single sound to make that wouldn’t deteriorate in his throat. Death. It didn’t only collect souls, a keeper of the those whose hourglass of time was up. It stole from those who lived and made them mute.

The world felt as though it was collapsing around him. The ruins in which he stood crumbling even more. Steve breathed deep. Fingers shaking, he removed the helmet, groaning at the pain it induced and carried it with him, prepared to drop it the second he found someplace safe.

Privacy was difficult to secure, but the compound had some shelter that he could seek. Sneak inside and fall to the ground, caving into the pain as his knees knit themselves back together. How he still stood, despite the devastating fight with every sort of concoction Thanos could rain down, he wasn’t sure. But it was not for much longer, the energy had depleted to critical means and he need to salvage what little he had to help with clean up.

Accumulate the bodies from the war field and send them to heaven like they deserved. It was his duty, as their Captain, to do right by them. And he would. After breaking down enough to resurface to life, he would close the casket to bury the rest of his hurt and do what he had to. He owed it to them.

Getting inside the blazing structure was easy. Hiding on the other side of the ashen wall was smooth. Refraining from punching the wall and damaging his cracked knuckles even more was strenuous. He didn’t know what to say- to think- to _do_. There was nothing left. Not anymore.

He thought back to the scene he had just witnessed, how Tony’s body was burnt. How he spent so long unconscious and beaten, fighting a fear and so undeniably weak by the exertion. He thought back to Clint’s explanation of how Natasha fought to die. Ran to jump off the cliff whilst forcing him to survive, selfless to her last breath and so horribly selfish.

Didn’t she know that they needed her? Wanted her? Couldn’t even begin to imagine a life where she didn’t make a sandwich for them to share, reassure them that she was not okay but she was strong enough to get through it, tease each other to lift the melancholy that poisoned the air. Steve couldn’t do it. She had been a constant for so long, years where they laughed and cried and lived and almost died.

His best friend, he thought meekly, eyes glistening and fire cackling. She was the reason he could do all he had accomplished. The honesty she gave even when every fibre of her desired to lie and protect herself- it was breaking his brittle heart.

“What do you want me to be?” she had asked, a familiar cheerless smile adorning her lips.

“A friend,” he wished, hopeful and knowing. That was exactly what she became.

For her to be gone, her body to be missing in space and lost as millions of atoms in the abyss, it hurt. It hurt so fucking bad, and he wanted her back. Needed her like the air he breathed. Without her presence it felt as though his heart had splintered and the pieces assigned for her and Tony were gone. A paralysing stinging conceived.

He watched the flames, back pressed into the corner of the disassembled room and arms crossed, admiring the way they danced and performed, fluid like water and as flexible as air. It kept him distracted enough not to notice the tears that dripped down his face and plunged to the floor. He didn’t want to think about them. Not anymore.

All he wanted was to hurt in seclusion. Allow his mind the crucial seconds to understand what happened, what they had done in the past hours that they couldn’t the past five years. _This is what she wanted_. _What she yearned to see more than the sun in the sky_.

And yet she wasn’t there to see it and Steve couldn’t help but hiccup a sob, chest constricting as the water at the brim of his lungs solidified, trapping whatever resided there permanently. What did it matter- it didn’t. He was used to the suffocation, he learned to breathe in the moments the stifling water drained. Not now though, not now or anytime soon. They were both gone, and with them a part of Steve.

Inhaling a quiet and quivering breath, his eyes never strayed from burning pots scattered across the land. Hypnotised, he observed them. What will remain after the fire ceases? he wondered. Ash. It will always be the cinders of existence that have decomposed far too quickly and far too harsh. Life will leave a residue.

But he didn't want that. He wanted them. Needed them god damn it. Yet the malevolent scripture of destiny didn’t care at all for what he wanted. It never had. Some were cursed from the moment they were born; Steve Rogers was one of the unlucky few. Wishes unanswered, life full of torment: it was all he would receive.

“You think any harder,” Bucky commented, finally coming into view. “You might just think up something that isn’t true.”

He looked good, surprising given that he had been dead for five years, calm, but downcast. The events were hard hitting and terrorising, the two of them knew how that felt.

Truth be told, as they fought, Steve felt ashamed to remember that he hadn’t thought about Bucky at all. Occupied with trying to protect Scott and Hope, whilst keeping the infinity stones safe from the mad titan who stopped at nothing trying to obtain them. Tiredly, Steve’s eyes raked Bucky’s body, unalarmed when his eyes went blurry and he could see nothing but black. He couldn’t hide, not when he felt as though there was nothing keeping him going.

“You okay?” he said in a low voice, gaze stuck on Bucky’s thigh as he struggled to focus. “Sam should be calling the medic soon you shou-”

“Steve,” Bucky intervened softly, and Steve didn’t say anything. Trembling as convulsions of grief and sorrow rocked his entire body, legs feeling unstable and threatening him of a descent from which he may never rise. Bucky stepped closer to him. “You seen yourself? Come, let me clean you up. You’re bleeding everywhere and I don’t like the looks of these bruises, we’ll have someone make sure you’re okay.”

He didn’t know what his injuries were, where they originated and if they hurt, he felt nothing. Numbness sedated his nerves, but he was certain that if he touched the wounds they would bellow excruciatingly. Best not to tamper with them as he healed. There were no bullets to remove, he’d be okay.

“I’m fine, Buck.” _I’m not. I’m far from okay and I miss them and why is it the ones who least deserve it? It should have been me_. “I’ll be out in a couple of minutes; you can leave if you want.”

“Steve you’re- you’re literally crying in front of me,” Bucky informed him incredulously. Forcing Steve to meet his eyes, he continued, “be honest with me, please. Do you want me to go?”

Steve shook his head.

“Can I hold you?”

Steve nodded.

“Can I kiss you? Not like that just-”

Not letting Bucky finish, Steve threw himself onto Bucky, sobbing as his body tore open and the wounds which were healing stretched painfully. It hurt so much, fuck. Everything hurt, had been hurting for so many decades now and he was full of it. Overcome with the suffering. He needed this. Now more than ever.

Quickly adopting the body that was resting entirely on him, Bucky’s arms wrapped around Steve, entering him into his embrace and he pulled him up from where he sagged. Steve cried, not loud- never loud, his body wasn’t programmed that way, and nestled into Bucky’s neck he wept. Smeared the old blood, the one that he had just released by reopening the cuts on his head and face, and the dirt from the battlefield all over him.

His hands wove into Bucky’s hair, resting on his head as the world around them braked, dread and distress jolting his decaying physique. Holding his shoulders together, wanting to slot completely into Bucky’s arms and for nothing to touch him, not even the gas that they lived in. in response, Bucky let him, gripping him just as tight and engulfing Steve.

Everything hurt; the physical injuries, the mental ones, and the ones he couldn’t comprehend but felt nonetheless. Dying was the easy part, to live was the true struggle. And he was sick of surviving whilst everyone around him dropped like flies. It was tiring knowing that they were gone, and he was still here. It was so fucking exhausting.

“Sh, Steve. You’re okay, I’ve got you, my love. I’m never letting you go ever again. Break down for me darling, that’s it. Get it all out,” Bucky whispered in encouragement, breath fanning Steve. Vaguely, he felt a sweet kiss touch the upper part of his ear. A delicate promise.

It made Steve’s head hurt more and his body fall harder, the sob demolishing his throat and his mind. He didn’t deserve this. The compassion and kindness and love, he wasn’t worthy.

“What do you mean you’re not worthy? This has nothing to do with value. This is you breaking down for the first time in decades after losing your family and mourning all that it’s taken to get here,” Bucky said, firm but gentle. “You’re always gonna be worth it to me, nothing in the world could change that. Not even you yourself.”

“I don’t know what to do, Buck,” Steve confessed, “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

Bucky kissed the top of his head. “Cry and rest. It’ll all be easier in the morning, I promise. Just gotta get there, however far it is.”

 _We owe it to the people not in this room._ She had said. _Whatever it takes_.

It took a lot more than just their lives, it took their essence of their life too.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr:  bountifulsilences   
> twitter:  AwestruckBuck   
> can't stop, won't stop crying.


End file.
